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ADDRE33 

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LOYHl O&MOCRACy 

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WISpOVSIKl 

TO THE 

Peopu 

OF THE jSTATP 



ADDRESS 



LOYAL DEMOCEACY 






W^X&CON&XN, 



TO THE 



PEOPLE OF THE STATE. 



REPORTED BY ARTHUR McARTHUR, 

AND ADOPTED IN CONVENTION AT JANESVILLE, SEPTEMBER 17, 1863. 



MILWAUKEE: 

DAILY WISCONSIN STEAM PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT. 

1863. 



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[1 



. 3 



ADDRESS 



The present unfortunate c'ondltion of 
our country appeals to the American peo- 
ple, asking from all a common devotion 
for the preservation of liberty, and the 
vindication of the national authority, as- 
sailed by a civil war that has no parallel 
in history. Under the most momentous 
circumstances that have ever befallen any 
people, it is just and proper, that a loyal 
assemblage should establish in their own 
vindication and for all future time, the de- 
liberate convictions of their political faith, 
and at the same time recognize as the high- 
est and most sacred duty which can rest 
upon the patriotic citizen, that of unflinch- 
ingly supporting the Federal Government 
in its perilous struggle for existence. — 
This expression is also salutary as well 
as necessary. The powerful political or- 
ganization with which we have acted has 
been betrayed into a position destructive 
of its usefulness, dishonorable to its pa- 
triotism, and entirely inconsistent with its 
history and achievements. We are, 
therefore, compelled to be uneqaivocally 
explicit in pointing out these infractions 
upon the faith and honor of our party ,and 
we would also prove that a loyalty exists 
amongst democrats as sincere and imper- 
ishable as was ever felt by any people to- 
ward any institutions that sway by bene- 
ficent laws. We cannot be blind to the 
fact that self-constituted expounders have 
warranted public opinion in attributing 



to the democratic party a want of zeal 
and devotion in a crisis when the govern- 
ment can only be preserved by force of 
arms ; nor can we observe, without anxie- 
ty, the construction which a reasoning 
world places upon the resolutions and 
popular harangues which assume to ut 
ter its sentiments and embody its spirit.-^ 
It is beyond denial that the burden and 
substance, during the last twelve months, 
of all these addresses, resolutions and 
pseudo-i)latforms are fraught with disaf- 
fection to the national authorities, and 
the most terrible predictions of their evil 
designs. They nowhere invite a generous 
and hearty co-operation with our defend- 
ers, in a war aimed directly at our na- 
tional life. In a moment of the most 
iminent public danger they have trans- 
gressed every limit of mere political oppo- 
sition, and in repeated instances resorted 
to the language of threat and defiance. — 
Instead of cheering congratulations and 
cordial suggestions, as the cause of the 
country prospered or was overcast, these 
factionary exponents have dealt in luke- 
warm patriotism, or rancorous personali- 
ties. In place of calling upon the people 
in the old-fashioned thunder tones of the 
lion-hearted democracy to stand by the 
government in its efforts to restore our 
national integrity; or commending any in- 
stance of its most brilliant successes, these 
public effusions have uniformly bristled 



with accusation, hindrance and the utmost 
vigor of censure. 

We may ask how deeply do these spu- 
rious text books, attemptmg to exemplify 
the democratic creed, enter into the duties 
we owe our beloved and shattered com- 
monwealth — what exhortation do they 
breathe to follow its banner ? What sac- 
rifices do they encourage for its salvation ? 
Where do they compare the appalling 
evils of defeat, to the minor sufferings and 
evils and trials through which victory 
must be achieved ? From what stand has 
a popular mouthpiece uttered a sentence 
for the last twelve months which betokens 
an approval of the most fortunate admin- 
istrative measure or conduct? In what 
phraseology has one of this class encour- 
aged, a hope that the rebellion will be 
crushed by executive or military vigor ? — 
Or has one of them upon any occasion sug- 
gested or approved of a single expedient 
bv which our success has been achieved, 
our armies advanced, and the south driven 
to the wall ? The war upon our hands 
is, indeed, on a scale of unparalleled mag- 
nitude ; and among the duties of an Amer- 
ican citizen, the most vital and absorbing 
one is its prosecution ; and a little more 
than a year has elapsed since this was 
recognized by all good men. With a few 
erratic exceptions, republicans and dem- 
ocrats outvied each other in the promp- 
titude and liberality of tl^eir contribu- 
tions of moral and material aid to the 
common cause ; and all parties, except a 
few Breckinridge apostles who had not 
changed their politics, contended with 
each other for the palm of devotion. 

The plan of circumstances remains un- 
changed at this hour, and our duties and 
necessities remain asj urgent as at the 
first outpouring of our indignation. The 
rebellion still rears its head, and nothing 
has occurred to diminish the sacred duty 
of suppressing it. The loyal people of 
the North stand now, as then, steadfast in 
their devotion. 

In the meanwhile disafiected |)erson6 
calling themselves by a singular abuse of 



the term, a "Democratic Party, " and 
possessing themselves of its organizations, 
profess to have a sincere dread of the 
Administration as the real enemy to be 
most feared and first defied ; and a 
strange and painful uniformity is appar- 
ent wherever their popular assemblages 
are held. The last object of concern is 
the vigorous chastisement of the rebellion, 
and the primary one is to spread the fire- 
brands of doubt, apprehension, and the 
wildest alienation from our own govern- 
ment. We hear from them no soul-stir- 
ring appeals of patriotism that sounded 
as battle-cries in the democratic camps of 
the Revolution, and with which we rous- 
ed and moved the nation in our wars with 
Great Britian and Mexico. Now the 
changes are rung upon the danger of con- 
fiding in the present powers for an in- 
stant , and while we are fulfilling the 
most stupendous portion of our destiny 
and the thunder of its portents covers the 
land aud the sea, the thin voice of the 
pseudo democracy whispers only its com- 
plaints ; and, indeed, so far has accusa- 
tion extended beyond the limit of fair de- 
bate, that the last charge heaped upon 
the national authorities is, thai they forced 
this cruel war by a dishonorable trick up- 
on the peaceful inhabitants of South Car- 
olina. Every point against the Govern- 
ment is magnified into the most vital im- 
portance by large conventions and little 
caucuses, and the great distinguished pub- 
lic speakers, and the small distinguished 
public speakers seldom venture from the 
slimy flow of vituperation and party epi- 
thets into the broad torrent that rushes 
with love of country alone, and stops not 
to spend itself in envious opposition to 
the difliculties and errors incident to so 
great a war. 

All these querulous carpings are not 
only unbecoming the democratic party in 
this great crisis, but they breed at the 
same time a spirit of insubordination ; 
they are beacons to the enemy, and if 
they are even false lights, they still cheer 
and encourage his hopes, they mislead 



true and loyal men who are taught to be- 
lieve misrepresentations by their con- 
stant repetition; while all who are tainted 
with Southern sympathy, all who are un- 
willing to bear arms, all who are disin- 
clined to pursue the only course before 
us, in re-establishing peace and the na- 
tional Government by force of arms ; all 
who have been guilty of the late insurrec- 
tions and of resistance to lawful authori- 
ty (although condemned by all great 
parties alike), take refuge under the 
a;gis of the democratic party, and dema- 
gogues, both in the east and the west, 
have uttered in its name teachings so dis- 
loyal and inflammatory as not to be dis- 
tinguishable from treason itself. 

Those who are more earnest than polit- 
ic, avow, without hesitation, that they ad- 
here to it, because they desire peace not 
even on the best terms, but on the speed- 
iest terms. 

There is no fact more apparent than 
its notorious indifierence to the war. This 
element in some of the States has already 
assumed the form of a principle, as in 
Connecticut, Ohio and Illinois. The 
prominent leaders and office seekers here, 
abstain, through prudential motives, from 
open and explicit avowals ; but the 
smaller fabricators of public opinion 
down to the street and bar-room politi- 
cians, denounce the war,the taxes and the 
enrollment, with outspoken and steady 
vehemence. In this we see that the duties 
of the citizen have become confounded 
with his f olitical animosities ; and his 
platforms have moulded him into a state 
of privy conspiracy against his own gov- 
ernment and into unconscious alliance 
with its enemies. How can partisans 
led by this class of stump speakers con- 
tribute an enthusiastic support to the 
country ? 

And yet no one doubts its extreme 
peril. No one disbelieves the immense 
dangers to which it is exposed, and every 
hour is fraught with complications of in- 
seperable perplexity, involving its life 



and death I Yet what is the democratic 
party doing ; the party to which Jefferson 
gave his name, to which Jackson left his 
mantle ? What is this party of memorial 
history and glorious traditions doing to 
save the country, to save itself ? It ia 
erecting platforms full of terrors and fire- 
brand addresses which nourish its bitter 
jealousies, and which becalm it 

"Like a painted ship upon a painted ocean. " 

There can only be one conclusion 
drawn from this supine conduct, and that 
is, that a controlling body of the party in 
every part of the State are willing to give 
up the revolted States without an effort, 
should that effort require any more fight- 
ing to retain them, there can be no doubt 
that this wing of the party constitutes so 
large a proportioU in its ranks as to over- 
awe the more patriotic and dictate the 
policy of the entire body. 

In the present temper of the loyal peo 
pie our orators, on public occasions, are 
not yet equal to the statement of the 
naked fact, but without some powerful 
agency interposes to check their down 
ward tendancy, they will soon be forced 
into its open admission. 

And so true is this, that even now if a 
democrat who is convinced that the .vigor- 
ous prosecution of the war is of para- 
mount importance to all other considera- 
tions as the only possible salvation for the 
Union, and avows his sentiments, he is 
instantly ostracised by the platform ad- 
herants. He is thrust from their councils 
and confidence ; he is pronounced an 
enemy of his country and consigned to 
outer darkness and the black republican 

party. 

This sort of political jargon is the very 

provocative to urge people to disregard 
their obligations as good citizens, and the 
same mousing after popular bug-bears 
characterises the "Ryan address" and plat- 
form resolutions. They are almost one 
uninterrupted strain of evil forebodings, 
oblique perceptions and furious denuncia- 
tions, while the additional resolve of the 



convention which adopted them, to amend 
the constitution itself to satisfy unpardon- 
ed traitors, shows evidently they had for- 
gotten the prestige of the democratic 
party, and how ready they were to plunge 
it into an abyss long ago reached by 
every body of men in our history, who 
have endeavored to weaken the faith of 
our people in the righteousness of a war 
for the safety and honor of the country. 
The most noted instances of historic in- 
famy have been thus acquired, and pos- 
terity has always looked back to these 
symptoms of lukewarm patriotism with a 
distaste that no defense was ever able to 
©bviate. The ill-fame which it casts be- 
hind grows like the shadows of night 
darker as the world continues its cc urse. 
Whilst this act of treachery is now new to 
the democracy, and its perpetrators have 
sufficient interest to assert its palliations, 
the imposture may last, but these will 
soon die from around it, leaving it in 
naked disgrace before all aftertimes. 

We behold the soil of our country red- 
den with the blood of a whole generation, 
and our soldiers in their graves and our 
warriors in their blood-stained shrouds — 
the murdered host of this accursed rebel- 
lion, — implore us to sustain by voice and 
deed the cause in which they fell. 

Shall the democracy, who have ever 
been the war party of the country, rally 
unhesitatingly and unconditionally to the 
front of danger and the protection of the 
Union ? We look back with reverence to 
its early history, let us act with the same 
wisdom, patriotism and unflinching deter- 
mination to sustain our government al- 
though we do not administer its trusts. 

The document commonly known as the 
" Ryan Address," was incorporated as 
part of the Democratic creed by the nomi- 
nating Convention. It is less definite in its 
recommendations than the resolutions, but 
when it first appeared, the height of inflam- 
matory language was thought to have been 
reached ; and many of the roost unswerv- 
ing members of the democratic party were 
alarmed at its tone, and many of the press- 



es which now endorse it, refused it admis- 
sion into their columns, but on the con- 
trary, spoke of it as an insult to the party 
and the country. The system that has 
brought all similar productions into the 
world was cautious and systematic. At 
first they passed for the spleen of selfish 
politcians of the New York News and Daily 
Day-Book school. The popular enthusiasm 
for some time, kept down the sprouting 
disloyalty of this class in Wisconsin, and 
the attacks upon the conduct of the war 
had called the attention of authority to sev- 
eral of the most violent and dangerous dis- 
loyalists in other States. Owing to these 
facts, the " Ryan Address," and all papers 
like it, became guarded in their language, 
and always introduced some patriotic 
comaaon places as a mask to their real de- 
signs. By means, however, of newspaper 
falsifications and public speeches equally 
disengenious, and the formation of clubs, 
in which the most Jacobinical outcries 
were applauded, an open disaffection was 
created towards our cause, which, in many 
places, has since been fomented into open 
anarchy and bloodshed, and even in Wis- 
consin, we have seen officers obstructed in 
the performance of their duties, and un- 
able to execute the law, without the pres- 
ence of military forces. The bolder ground 
of the platform resolutions has thus been 
reached, step by step. This is evident on 
the most cursory comparison. The Ad- 
dress deals in generalities, which are after- 
wards condensed and pointed in the resolu- 
tions. The former ventured no farther 
than to say, in the following moderate 
terras : " We believe that the Executive 
acts of whicb we complain, were done 
rather in inadvertance, by subordinate 
officers, than in the deliberate purpose of 
subverting the Constitution or with the 
sanction of the President.'' 

The resolutions declai*e precisely upon 
the same point, that — 

" These Guarantees have been sj'Rtematically 
viobt d by tho present federal administration. 
Not by accident, not by mistake but upon the de- 
liberate assumption of th*? President of the 
United States and his subordinates, civil and mili- 
tary, that they may of right violate them v i,.u- 
ever in their judgment it may seem expedient. " 

And in the same breath, we have the fol- 



lowing threat 



" And we hold that every deliberate violation of 
the popular liberty or private right by the Presid- 
ent or his subordinates is a crime against the 
Constitution which will be followed by just con- 
stitutional punishment, if peace and constitutional 
order should ever again reign in our distracted 
country." 

The extravagance contained in these ex- 
tracts would have been out of place at the 
date of the Address. The people had not 
yet been tacitly compromised to listen to 
such rhodomantades, and would have re- 
jected the whole affair, with such a repul- 
sive feature in it. 

Again, the Address says : 

" Whatever man, officer, or party assumes to be 
true to the Union and uot to the Constitution, as 
our forefathers made it and our ferefathers enjoy- 
ed it, is disloyal tu both. Blind submission to the 
administration of the Government, is not devotion 
to the country or to the Constitution. The Admin- 
istration is not the Constitution, * * * * and 
when the Administration violates the Constitu- 
tion, loyalty to the Adininistrdtioa may become dis- 
loyally to the Union. ' ' 

The statement in the resolutions informs 
us that — 

" The history of the world has rarely shown a 
grosser or more systematic abuse of delegated and 
limited powers or a more insolent assumption of 
arbitrary power by the constitutional servants of 
the people." 

The first was, as far as it was deemed 
advisable to go, at the time of penning the 
Address. As, however, nothing had oc- 
curred in the interim to intimidate the dis- 
loyalists, the charge of the grossest viola- 
tion of the Constitution ia made in the reso- 
lutions, and thus the latter present the 
very case in which obedience to the Ad- 
ministration is pronounced in the Address 
as disloyalty to the Union. 

There are not a few inconsistencies be- 
tween the view of the same subject in 
these two wings of the platform. The 
sketch of our national difficulties • in the I 
first, declares that •■' There was no reason 
why the several States in the Union should 
not have abided together in harmony for 
all time ;" but the resolutions as- 
sure us that " the slaveholding States had 
received long and grievous provocation, by 
assaults upon their constitutional rights by 
Northern Abolitionists, the original and ac- 
cursed cause of the civil war now raging." 
How likely " abiding together in harmony 
for all time,'' is to be the result of long and 
continued provocations by assaults upon 
their constitutional rights," is a proposition 
we leave to be reconciled by the democrats 



who swallowed the chimera. Nor is the 
Address consistent with itself, as these 
two extracts will show. The first one is : 

" That the revolt and consequent civil war 
were a long foretold and probable result of tjx^ ac- 
cession to power of a sectional party, becafise 
their success was the defeat of the spirit of tile 
Constitution." 

The same twaddle about the spirit of the 
Constitution being violated by the election 
of a President, made according to the forms 
and obligations prescribed by its own pro- 
visions, has certainly no right to a place in 
the platform of a constitutional party, and 
if it has any force, it applies more strongly 
to those who voted on the same occasion 
for Breckinridge, than to any class of men 
in the country, some of whom are upon 
the State Ticket. But the other extract 
traces the giant crime of rebellion to its 
proper source. It reads as follows : 

" But the truth is that the apostles of secession 
were traitors at heart, independent of the election- 
and that they wanted and used the electiun only 
as a lever to preciiiitate the South from its allegi- 
ance. They duped the Houth into the belief that 
the entire people of the North were infected with 
the leprosy or abolition." 

And the resolutions to put both of these 
statements at defiance, and taking sides 
with the revolted States, informs us that 
the abolitionists were the original and ac- 
cursed cause of the civil war now raging. 
And the learned and able gentleman who 
was the presiding officer of the nominating 
Convention, declared that our own govern- 
ment drew the first fire from Southern 
guns by a preconcerted trick to initiate a 
civil war. Indeed, the Address, through 
many paragraphs, labors to divide the re- 
sponsibility of our present condition be- 
tween the secessionists and the sectional 
parties in the North. But the account 
given by the presiding officer of a villain- 
ous and unchivalric act of the South, goes 
beyond a mere palliation ; it acts as a 
justification as it is intended to do, and to 
throw the casus belli upon the North alone. 
But these inconsistencies and historical 
perversions would not have been endorsed 
by the delegates if they had for a moment 
thought of the past. Many years before 
the " Abolitionists" or " Republicans" had 
a voice. South Carolina (to whom the 
term " original and accursed cause" of this 
rebellion is far more applicable than where 



8 



we find it) refused to vote at the Presi- 
dential election at all ; and in 1832, this 
State had levied armies and prepared 
every thing for resistance to the laws, as 
much as if a foreign invasion was about to 
enter her territory. She adopted an ordin- 
ance of conditional secession, and such was 
the indomitable spirit that appeared to 
prevail, and the determination not to per- 
mit the laws of the United States to be 
executed, that an act of compromise was 
effected solely to avert the consequences 
her threats of civil war predicted. General 
Jackson was President at the time, and he 
was about to give an appalling explanation 
of what he considered " treasonable prac- 
tices." 

He considered that Calhoun had incurred 
the penalty of death, death by the gallows , 
without an overt act of violence ; and in 
the presence of the Great Eternal he 
avowed his solemn determination that he 
should speedily be brought to justice. He 
did not stop to palaver with South Carolina 
through platforms about their having re- 
ceived long and grievous provocation, by 
assaults upon their constitutional rights, on 
account of the revenue laws which they 
affirmed to be sectional for the benefit of 
the North. The dispute was ended by com- 
promising the protective system ; and 
every national measure for the last thirty 
years that the South has found too long 
or too short for their views, has been de- 
nounced as sectional, and such no doubt do 
they regard even the bombardment of 
Charleston itself. General Jackson declared 
that nullification was the pretext for dis- 
union then, and that their next pretext 
would be slavery. The Ryan platform ver- 
ifies his prediction. But it is a most inde- 
cent exposition to engraft palliations for 
unpardoned traitors in the democratic creed. 

That portion of the address relating to 
slavery is one of the most singular passa- 
ges to be found in political literature. It 
rivals any of the tortured defenses which 
bondage calls to its aid, for although we are 
told that " the democracy have no apology 
for Southern slavery," yet a considerable 
space is devoted to its vindication. Within 
a quarter of a century, although slavery 
had put forth more apologies for its own 



existence and extension than any other 
subject of criticism in the circle of human 
affairs, yet the democracy have never been 
so unwise as to make a defense of slavery 
an element of party, wisdom and piety. 
We have always regarded the institution as 
within the protection of the constitutional 
compromises; and even Southern democrats 
of the most extreme opinions never asked 
us to defend it outside of the constitution. 
But while the masters and partizans of sla- 
very have had no little anxiety in disposing 
of its imputed criminality within their own 
conscience, and before the world, the ter- 
rible question is disposed of by the con- 
science-keepers of the Wisconsin democra- 
cy, by declaring, as an abstract proposition 
" that the proper condition of the African 
was subjection in some form to the white 
* * * when brought together, the ser- 
vitude of the inferior is the best condition 
for both races." * * * «< Nature has 
made social equality impossible without 
fatally sinning against her laws." * * * 
This state of things is pronounced " a mis- 
fortune, not a crime;" "a necessary evil 
resulting from the violation of natural law 
in bringing them together," «S:;c., &c. This 
goes far beyond the serious opinions of 
reasonable Southerners, and the philan- 
thropist of the address should not have 
\Yithheld the opinion of Mr. Jefferson, whom 
we have always regarded as the best possi- 
ble authority, who, upon this especial sub- 
ject in the abstract, has said that the Al- 
mighty has no attribute that can take sides 
with the slave master. The attempt is now 
made, we believe, for the first time, to 
make this dogma not a mere expression of 
opinion, but an article of political faith ; 
and perhaps we should not be surprised 
that the attempt to discredit the war and 
its active powers should be coupled with a 
vindication of the peculiar institution our 
enemies uphold as the basis of their gov- 
ernment, and which has led to the blood 
and ashes of this rebellion. 

As a political organization the loyal dem- 
ocrats have nothing to do with it whatever. 
Its present treatment is one purely milita- 
ry, its future consideration will be urged 
before competent tribunals, or disposed of 
by the direct course of events beyond the 



control of political action. The Union 
must and shall be preserved, even if sla- 
very should perish in the dreadful contest. 
The address designates the present hour 
"as a time of great trial and calamity;" 
" of national suffering and sorrow," " and 
a crisis of fearful peril to the Union ;" and 
ic might have added infinitely stronger 
terms to express the appalling dangers of 
our condition ; yet in such a moment, when 
it was so necessary to unite all patriotic 
citizens, it forgets and forgives no differen- 
ences of party opinion, but it recalls and 
embitters them all. The " fearful peril" 
calls for an amnesty of party animosities, 
and an offer of peace for past differences of 
opinion. At the moment of its appearance 
conciliation was the overruling thought of 
the people. Instead, however, of this, the 
address becomes a sweeping and ungra- 
cious accusation against an immense body 
of the loyal people of the North who, as it 
would appear from the returns, have fur- 
nished our armies with so many of our de- 
fenders. The changes are sounded upon 
abolitionists and republicans, and the trai- 
tors of the South may feel themselves 
compensated for what is said of them in 
the vindictive abuse heaped upon so large 
a class in the very armies that are defeat- 
ing them. Indeed, the document is a "Pro- 
clamation to a bitter party warfare, and 
beyond this there is no appeal to our love 
of country and fealty to our government ; 
while the whole tone of its phraseology is 
throughout rueful, querrulous and threat- 
ening. Its terms are denunciatory and im- 
perative. Their staple is that the whole 
war policy of the government shauld be 
abandoned. 

To Americans who are acquainted with 
the fact that this appeal was made to a 
people who might be invaded and bhot down 
in open daylight, the principal blemish of 
its conception would appear to be the utter 
and reckless selfishness of its points and 
objects. Its lamentable want of perspica- 
city in grasping the very clear outlines of 
our national position, its unpardonable con- 
cealment of the demands and necessities 
created by that position, and its inability 
to instruct a loyal mind, or even cope with 
the most humble patriotism, should be suf- 



ficient to exclude it from the confidence or 
respect of all loyal citizens. The loyal 
democracy cannot accept it as an exposi- 
tion of democratic principle while they 
denounce it as falling far short of the de- 
mands of this perilous contest. 

The platform resolutions begin, where 
the address leaves off, with an evident per- 
suasion that if the people cf Wisconsin en- 
dured the first, anything that could be easi- 
ly written would not surpass their toler- 
ance. Proceeding upon this plan, the first 
of these resolutions recognizes as a fact 
that deubts had existed whether the Fed- 
eral Government had power " to coerce a 
State peaceably withdrawing from the 
Union," but that this had been solved by 
the South firing the first gun. The infer- 
ence, however, still remains that unless a 
State makes open war upon the Union it is 
doubtful whether the General Government 
has power to conrpel the several States to 
remain in the Union. From whence came 
this paralyzing doubt, and how comes it 
stamped with democratic authority. If 
there be anything in the doubt, then the 
republican resolutions of our State Legis- 
lature truly condemned in the address are 
sound. The dogma came from Southern 
nullifiers, and no cloud of mystification 
will ever persuade' the clear American 
mind that they were incompetent to defend 
their own government, their ciyil institu- 
tions, and their hereditary franchises. 

The incompetent powers of the old Con- 
federation plainly demonstrated the nects 
sity of a change in this particular, and 
furnished a cogent reason for the adoption 
of the constitution. The necessary author- 
ity of our government in questions of State 
insubordinations was strenuously afiirmed 
by the democratic party of this State all 
through the Booth trials, and the adjudica- 
tions growing out of that controversy. The 
constitution is the same now as then, and 
why should any countenance be now given 
to a doctrine which we thon denounced as 
revolutionary. 

The second resolution commences by ap- 
proving of " a war'''' for the defense of the 
Union. The question which these resolu- 
tions habitually elude is iht present war, 
with the battles it has fought cince the re- 

2 



10 



bellious attack upon Sumter. jHere is a 
mighty struggle for national existence, 
honor and posterity. Are you foi or against 
it ? If the latter, vrhat boots the extenu- 
ating and qualifying casuistries with which 
you seek to disguise a sentiment you dare 
not to announce. Is the present war that 
heaven-approved contest upon which you 
invoke the blessing of Almighty God, or is 
it "as unholy a war as ambition could de- 
vise or tyranny inflict?" condemned in the 
platform. If you do not drop all vague- 
ness and become explicit on this point, the 
world will not respect the verbiage which 
stands godfather for your patriotism. 

This resolution is followed by laborious 
diatribes upon the violated constitution, 
military usurpation, official imbecility, and 
the duty which some day may devolve upon 
the people to take the law into their own 
hands. As nearly two columns of them 
have been published daily in a Milwaukee 
organ as the very acme of democratic wis- 
dom, they must be familiar to all who pe- 
ruse that respectable journal. (The fate 
of this journal is a remarkable instance of 
mutability in political affairs. It has 
been engaged lately in reading democrats 
out of the party, and is now excommunicated 
itself by the potent edict of the author of the 
platform.) The rabid character of some of 
the points, nevertheless, entitle them to as 
brief a repetition as this extended address 
will admit. Take the following extracts as 
a sample of the whole : 

"But that war waged by the federal goverament 
to reduce sovereign states to provincial dependen- 
cy, or to subvert rights secured by the constitu- 
tion to the several states and the people thereof, 
under a pretence of maintaining both, would be 
as unholy a war as ambition could devise or ty- 
ranny inflect. 

■!(•**** 

3. Resolved, That while we believe that the slave- 
holding states had receivea long and grievous 
provocation, by assaults upon their constitutional 
rights by northern abolitioniem, the original and 
accursed cause of the terrible civil war now raging 
yet we believe the revolt. 

* -x- * * * 

And that the present federal administration, in 
conducting the present war, has left the world in 
doubt whether their principal object is to restore 
the constitution at the south or to subvert it at 
the north. The history ol the world has rarely 
shown a grosser or more systematic abuse of delega- 
ted and limited powers or a more insolent assump- 
tion of arbitrary power by the constitutional ser- 
vants of the people. 

* * * * * 

Our fathers founded the constitution, and if 
those charged with the administration of the fed- 



eral government should be so ineane and guilty as 
to turn their power against the rights of the states 
and the peoplpof the north, we fully believe that 
they will tind tlie great masses of the northern 
people without distinction of party, worthy of the 
constitution by supporting it, and worthy of 
the fathers who founded it, by imitating their 
example under lawless oppression. Better liber- 
ty and right out of the Union than a government 
above the constitution and the laws. 

•* * * * * 

These guarantees have been systematically vio- 
lated by the present federal administration. Not 
by accident, not by mistake but upon the deliber- 
ate assumption of the President of the United 
States and his subordinates, civil and military, 
that they may of right viola.te them whenever in 
their judgement it may seem expedient. 

* * * * * 

And we hold that every deliberate violation of 
the popular liberty or private right by the Presi- 
dent or hi-f subordinates is a crime against the con- 
stitution which will be followed by just constitu- 
tional punishment, if peace and constitutional or- 
der should ever again reign in our distracted 
country. 

* * * * * 

Many other official acts of congress, the presi- 
dent and his subordinates, not only tend to show 
a conspiracy to establish, but if executed, do of 
their own force establish a military despotism on 
the ruins of the constitution.' 

There are attendant phrases clustering a- 
round these appeals to a spirit of contuma- 
cy to recommend them to public toleration. 
This only makes them more dangerous. 
Now, such are some of the insinuations, 
which, though not heard of at the time of 
the Address, have since then dilated into 
the bulk and burden of political platforms 
and oratory. If it had been the design to 
lay our present form of Government aside, 
a more revolutionary method of preparing 
the public mind for that event could not 
have been devised by the ingenuity of our 
leaders. If the Executive, in the confusion, 
embarx-assment and bloodshed of this 
mighty struggle for national existence,com- 
mits an act, these self-constituted censors 
pronounce unconstitutional or infractory 
of State rights, they assume the right to 
proclaim his efforts tyrannical and " un- 
holy," and if Congress or the President fall 
into errors, they are to be denounced as 
lawless oppressors, and the " great masses" 
are to imitate the revolutionary example 
of their fathers. Another conclusion to 
which we are driven by these fulminations, 
is, that the war against the revolted States 
has become unholy and damnable, from 
some cause or other, in its conduct ; and 
this is the inevitable inference from the 
connection of the statement in the second 



11 



resolution. There is a constant recur- 
rence of grievances we have never felt, 
and they are repeated at every breath, as 
if the people could net otherwise be 
brought to believe in the truth of the pic- 
ture. Is this like the calm transactions of 
men resolved to stand by their rights, their 
country and firesides, in a moment so hu- 
miliating to the loyal American heart. 

It is an often repeated motto that the 
President is amenable to the laws as well 
as the private citizen, and a vindictive 
threat is made of bringing him and his 
officers to punishment at^some future day. 
We are not engaged in a defense of that 
officer, but are exposing these resolutions. 
The main allegation, in connection with 
this threat of punishment is a direct false- 
hood. The President has never set himself 
above the law, or deliberately assumed 
that he had a right to violate the provisions 
or guarantees of the Constitution, as charg- 
ed upon him in one of these extracts. On 
the other hand, he has in his acts " assum- 
ed" to place himself behind the aegis of 
the Constitution and asserted its para- 
mount sanctity, and it is well known that 
he has rescinded in a spirit oi cautious 
compliance with the general tenor of the 
Constitution, many acts of his subordinates. 
It should also be said, for the sake of truth, 
violated in this resolution, that the corres- 
pondence, State papers and personal inter 
views, in which the President and his ad- 
visers have sp.'ken upon public affairs, 
they have uniformly contradicted the tact 
that they followed any other guide than the 
Constitution and the laws. In this specu- 
lative opinion he may have been mistaken; 
but what can be more pernicious than 
holding a threat of punishment and degra- 
dation over the head of the Chief Magis- 
trate for an offense of which he is not 
guilty, to fall upon him as soon as he shall 
rescue us all from an almost exterminating 
peril. But such is the mysterious way of 
a platform. 

There is a passing compliment to our 
soldiers, and the only other object selected 
for sympathy is a man who is principally 
notorious for his glaring treason. Vallan- 
digham is introduced, with a volley of 
abuse, derogation and defiance to the pow- 



ers that be, in the implied impersonation of 
a hero and a patriot, and as the most noto- 
rious villifier of the war is to be exalted for 
his misdeeds and the method of their pun- 
ishment. 

Without entering into the controversy on 
this point, we thus see a most contumaci- 
ous demagogue, who endeavored by every 
artifice in his power to stir up sedition 
among the citizens and mutiny among the 
soldiers, represented as a martyr to 
human rights, whom the people cannot too 
much honor. It is simply a tender to every 
man with the ability and opportunity, to 
stir up revolt for the sake of civil promo- 
tion. It is a prize offered for the great- 
est proficiency in disloyalty and 
public disturbance. It is made the 
qualification of the Governor, of a 
large and powerful State, to have declared 
void the acts of Congress, the authority of 
the public servants, and excited insurrec- 
tion among the people whose government is 
tendered to him. The example of Vallandig- 
ham is more depraved than the combined fe- 
rocity of the New York rabble, because it 
, leads to such outbreaks. The only compensa- 
tion in this shocking transaction is that the 
brutal murderers who are instigated by 
such teachings, will serve out their period 
of incarceration and slink out of sight, 
but the Ohio traitor will never be forgotten 
as long as the name of Benedict Arnold is 
remembered. It will retain its bad pre- 
eminence after his more feeble imitators 
in Wisconsin shall have perished forever. 
A lamentable want of political candor is 
observable throughout all this enormous 
platform. The Northern or Loyal States 
have been visited, as we are told, with an 
experience of woe and danger, of tyranny 
I and oppression, to an extent seldom found 
on the pages of history, and the final con- 
clusion is announced : " Better Liberty 
and right out of the Union, than a Govern- 
ment above the Constitution and the laics." 
This piece of gasconade is not an original 
conception with the platform. It is an old 
fire-eaters sentiment, drank too with ap- 
plause for the last quarter of a century in 
! South Carolina and the slave cities general- 
I ly, from whence it has been transplanted 
1 by our Wisconsin oracles. And to give 



12 



point to this motto, we are further told 
that in certain contingencies, the masses 
will be found worthy of the fathers who 
founded the Constitution " by imitating 
their example under lawless oppression." 
That is, the Constitution is to be preserved 
by levying war against the federal authori- 
ties as our fathers did against George the 
Third and the Stamp Act. It is to be de- 
plored that able men will work themselves 
up to such a pitch of inflammatory expres- 
sion at an hour requiring so much deliber- 
ation as the present, and it is still more 
wonderful that such Southern exotics 
should make their appearance in the medi- 
tations of a modern expounder. To cap 
the climax, the genius of Wisconsin, in in- 
fusing hatred of lawful authority, soar to 
such a height that it declares the history 
of the world has rarely shown a grosser or 
more systematic abuse of powers or a more 
insolent assumption of arbitrary power, 
and that the Administration, in conducting 
the war, has left the world in doubt whether 
their principal object is to restore the Con- 
stitution at the South or to subvert it at the 
North. In other words, we are told that 
the efforts of the Administration to subvert 
the Constitution in the North, have been 
equal to all the great battles, and the ex- 
penditure of a thousand million of treasure, 
and a hundred thousand lives, engulphed 
in this war against the South. 

Is this not the language of insanity ? 

We are told that the South are destroying 
the most benignant government on earth, 
but in another breath we are informed that 
our own authorities are systematic oppress- 
ors,insolent assumers of power,and deliber- 
ate violators of the law,and that no man can 
tell whether they are attempting to destroy 
the cons'itution or to save it ; that we are 
right in defending our country, but that the 
aduiinistration is not the government, and 
that we have a right to revolt from it. If 
we would march firmly against the enemy, 
we are pointed to a greater foe among our 
comrades. The broad ground is admitted 
that the South has robbed us of our fairest 
possessions, but we are especially instruct- 
ed that we have been robbed of our most 
precious privileges by our own government 
in the North. We are told that most un- 1 



doubtedly we should defend the Union of 
our fathers, and the same breath admon- 
ishes us that the very means employed to 
do so are in danger of being used in the 
most unholy device ever conceived by ty- 
ranny and ambition. 

The armies of the South are our enemies 
on all the battlefields in this war, and on 
the seas of the earth. They have destroyed 
our peace, shed our blood, and sunk our 
ships for two years. Yet we are told that 
an equal enemy prepares destruction for 
us at home, and that both of them are foes 
to us of the greatest magnitude. 

In a crisis demanding the utmost single- 
ness of mind, an honest patriotic party ask 
advice ; they are anxious to do their duty, 
and they repair to a publicist of note ; he 
gives them a platform, and their confusion 
is complete. 

They are thus imbued with the idea that 
the national administration and the demo- 
cratic party constitute hostile elements, 
and that the latter must find fault with and 
denounce every act of the former. The 
safety of the country is at stake, and may 
be deeply and fatally affected by this ruth- 
less proscription ; yet the most abject sub- 
servancy to these prejudices is the only 
acceptable pledge of party obedience, al- 
though it banishes justice and patriotism 
from our ranks, and deprives our couatry 
of our sympathy and aid in the moment 
when its life or death hangs upon passing 
events. 

Again, an able bodied youth experiences 
an antipathy towards shouldering a mus- 
ket, and consequently desires to defraud 
the country of his enrollment. His politi- 
cal instructors tell him that the war is a 
nefarious one, and may become " unholy" 
in its present hands, and he willingly par- 
ticipates in these views He and a thou- 
sand or more like himself finally adopt an 
address and a string of resolutions setting 
forth these doctrines, and he stands upon 
his platform. The laws of Congress, the 
decencies of patriotism, and the common 
peril of us will have been superceded by 
his platform. He lives and breaths under 
the Ryan dispensation. If he commits 
treason, well and good, so have his friends 
and guides. Will the democratic party 



13 



much longer submit to such guidance, y We 
call upon them to repudiate this stupendous 
system of contradiction and selfish abstrac- 
tions, and once more raise the standard of 
our former triumph and glory. 

Amidst all these inflammatory apptals,no 
word is spoken of the ceaseless cares which 
weigh down those guidiog our destinies ; 
no thought is bestowed on the mighty task 
of a government sending forth thousands 
to battle who may never appear again 
among their friends ; no sympathy for the 
wisdom which has preserved our national 
capitol from desecration, and which has 
kept the country unentangled with foreign 
nations, and unscathed by their hostilities. 
Ye are not enjoined to admire with grati- 
** ude the development of our colossal fi- 
lances, or the resources and prosperity 
iijvhich strike other nations with wonder, 
WiVe are not referred to the material corns 
ort and increasing independence of almost 
I'very branch of industry, or the magical 
■levelopment of heretofore unknown sour- 
;-es of security and power. Why are we 
lot reminded of the opulence that has set- 
led upon the cities, or of the auspicious 
I'ewards that are gathered from labor in 
';he country ? Even the narrow partizan 
cannot offer his congratulations that our 
.'avorite arm of defense on the sea is now 
1 wall of iron that the batteries of the old 
world cannot indent or deflect from its 
course. No cheering word escapes from 
, this mass of animosity, turbulence and re- 
* morseless egotism ; not an interest or pas- 
iff. sion is laid on the shrine of our country. 
Patriotism, affection and self-denial throw 
no votive garland to their motherland; 
ithey pass by and leave its altai cold and bare. 
d Such are some of our reasons for oppos- 
Jing the platform and the present position of 
the disloyalists. We cannot defend the latter 
any more than we can uphold the patriot^ 
ism of the Hartford Convention, and we 
rejoice to know that the State and the 
country abound with a clear- sighted and 
loyal democracy. The sophistries of prac- 
ticed debaters, of special pleaders, and 
technical hair-splitters, have nevtr been 
able to impose upon them a permanent 
misconception of public affairs, nor of their 
public duties. The sober second thought 



has invariably dispelled the erroas pro- 
duced by new issues and propagated by 
designing partisans. And even already 
there are many indications that public 
opinion has become in a considerable de- 
gree disabused of the erroneous impres- 
sions the address and its accompanying 
resolutions were intended to produce. A 
deliberate examination of these cold-blood- 
ed productions has carried a wide-spread 
conviction that they were put forth for the 
ends of a bitter party warfare, and not for 
the welfare of the whole people ; that they 
merely deal in the conventionalities of a 
hollow loyalty ; that their patriotism is 
one of pretense, and not ardant and spon- 
taneous ; that they retail the words of an 
actor, without the inspiration of a patriot. 
The intuitive discernment of the people 
has detected the contradictions and eva- 
sions which these papers impiously set up 
to meet the great issues of this convulsion, 
and which are insisted upon as their stan- 
dard of political faith. 

The people observe that in spite of the 
ominous predictions and wide-spread op- 
pressions which they recklessly claim to 
exist, that our armies are triumphant, our 
credit unshaken, public liberty held sacred 
and universally enjoyed, while all kinds 
and conditions of men are prosperous and 
contented. They also know that the very 
men who have personally confrouted the 
dangers, and most intimately observed the 
necessities of the present war, give the 
most solemn verdict in its favor, and we 
hear of no remonstrances against its con- 
duct or continuance from the Stark- 
weathers, the Barstows, the Sanders, 
the Braggs, the Fairchilds, the Hen- 
nings, or the Hobarts. The forethought 
of the democracy is already beginning to 
tear the veil from the monstrous fallacies 
which the platform exalts to the import- 
ance of democratic truths, and already the 
enemies of our national integrity, of our 
Union and our Constitution, appear before 
the party they have failed to deceive and 
destroy, to receive their condemnation at 
its hands. Here, to-day, we raise the old 
standard, blazing all over with its resplend- 
ent motto : " The Federal Union : It 
Must and Shall be Preserved !" 



ARTHUR Mc ARTHUR. Chairman of Committee. 



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